AT&T takes on Google in Texas broadband war

Google Inc.’s steady expansion of its Fiber program, which is offering superfast Internet connections in select cities, has been described as a looming threat to cable and phone companies, one that an analyst said could turn them into frogs “slowly being boiled.”

Well, AT&T this week signaled that it isn’t going to just sit and wait for that happen. The telecom giant just unveiled a plan for an all-fiber, 1-gigabit broadband network in Austin, Texas.

“Austin, get ready to binge watch television and download shows in seconds, wipe out your online gaming opponents before they see you coming, and communicate with business associates through a high quality video conference call,” the company said in a release.

The announcement comes six months after Google named Austin its second Google Fiber city.

“We think this reaction suggests that AT&T believes that Google Fiber can be successful in capturing material market share, perhaps influenced by their visibility of Kansas City, where they are the incumbent telco for much of Google Fiber\’s footprint,” he wrote. “We would agree with such belief.”

And AT&T’s Austin move also indicates that the telecom giant “may not believe that three markets already announced by Google are the end of the story.”

“We agree with that too,” Kirjner said.

Kirjner had argued that Google’s Fiber project is part of “a very long game,” one that long-term investors in cable and phone companies should follow closely because it could mean “slowly boiling the incumbent frog.”

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